Smile
by Glamourcat
Summary: Spencer is reunited with a friend from high school who will be instrumental in cracking the case the B.A.U. is currently working on. But can they really reconnect and be the friends they had been? And can Morgan and Garcia keep their noses out of the business of others?


Title: Smile

Date: 4/4/2014

Author: J.R. Cooper

Parent Series: Criminal Minds

Author's Notes: I own none of the characters from Criminal Minds. All other original characters that appear in this story are mine. This is written for the pure love of the show and not for profit. This takes place before Blake leaves the series.

It had rained for almost a week straight. The river had overflowed its banks. There was finally enough clear weather for the park rangers to walk the banks and see what kind of damage had been done to the hiking trails. They were not prepared for what the water and mud runoff had revealed.

"Oh dear god," One of the rangers whispered as he took in the scene before him. He barked the order to his partner. "Call the cops. Call them now!"

Eyes wide, the other man complied and then asked once he was off the phone. "What do you think caused this?"

"A monster." His partner answered.

The police, once on the scene, immediately called the B.A.U. when it became apparent that these bodies were the result of wrongful death rather then a simple Native American burial ground or old Colonial graveyard that had been inadvertently uncovered. Given the level of decomposition on the bodies, which were nothing more then skeletons – and incomplete ones at that since all that was left was what the river decided to deposit - it was the decision of Agent Hotchner to reach out to the L.A. Branch of the FBI. He'd heard some good things about one of their Forensic Artists and if the scene his team was about to tackle was as bad as the police were saying, they'd need the help.

She knew her hair was falling down out of its bun. She knew she had bags under her eyes. She knew her clothing was wrinkled and that overall, she looked like absolute hell. She didn't give a damn though. She marched through the office towards his office determined to give him the verbal stripping he deserved.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" She kicked his door open, letting it slam against the frame. "How could you turn down Roger's request for leave? He's allowed to take time off for the birth of his child, you pompous ass. It's covered under the Family Leave Act. You cannot deny his request!"

"Why, hello to you too, Genevieve." He looked up from the paperwork on his desk. He sneered at the blonde woman in front of him. "When did your flight get in?"

"Cut the crap, Reynolds." Genevieve crossed her arms and stared him down. "What gives? What reason could you _possibly_ have to keep Roger away from his wife and child?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." He straightened his folders. "But I am glad you're here. We just got a request in from the B.A.U. in Quantico. A recent flood has uncovered a sizable number of bodies. All of which are decomposed to just the bare skeleton – none of which are complete. They need your help reconstructing and identifying the bodies."

"You are not changing the subject, Tyler Reynolds!" Genevieve slammed her hands down on his desk and loomed over him. "Roger deserves that time. He puts in more overtime than even me! And you can't spare him for even a week? Bullshit!"

"Do not think you can come in here and pull these intimidation tactics with me!" He slammed his own hands down and stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over, getting right into her face.

"Why not?" She hissed at him, a crooked smile on her face. "You use them all the time!"

He growled but broke eye contact with her. "Roger gets his leave. You get on a plane to Virginia. Agent Hotchner asked for you specifically."

She narrowed her eyes and studied him. "Call Roger in here and tell him now."

She watched him swallow his anger again and press the intercom button. "Tell Roger to get in here."

"Yes, sir." The secretary's voice answered as the intercom crackled on and back off.

She stood, eyes still narrowed, arms crossed, spine stiff as she watched him. He tried to affect a pose of nonchalance but fell short.

"You wanted to see me?" The agent in question walked into the room and froze when he saw Genevieve there.

"I'm afraid there was a clerical error in your leave request. It was supposed to be granted." Reynolds told him flatly. "As of right now you have the whole next week to spend with your family."

"Th-thank you." Roger replied and fled. Reynolds looked up sharply, certain that the man had been thanking the woman rather then him but the agent was already gone.

"Case." She held out one hand.

He slapped a folder into it. "If you hurry you can catch the 7am flight."

She flared her nostrils and rolled her eyes. Turning on her heel she stomped out of his office, kicking his door again on the way out.

"All right team," Agent Aaron Hotchner walked into the conference room where the rest of the team was waiting and put down his travel mug of coffee and a stack of files. "This one is going to be messy."

"And how." Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia clicked a button on her remote and crime scene photos popped up on the screen before them. "The river in George Washington National Park flooded this spring and when it finally returned to its own banks this not-so-lovely scene is what two park rangers discovered."

"A jumble of skeletal remains." Morgan observed. "Not the normal thing to find on a hiking trail. Do we know how many individual remains there are? I can count seven skulls in that one picture but it's hard to tell exact numbers."

"Right now we have nine skulls recovered and soooo many bones it is really difficult to know if there's more or if that's all of them. Local PD has their forensics combing the site plus places both up and downriver to see where the bodies came from and if anything made it further downstream." Garcia answered.

"So this isn't the original disposal site. That isn't how the bodies were originally arranged." Reid observed. "Since they were uprooted by the river's flooding we'll have no idea of the victim's posing, or disposal."

"That's going to make our jobs a lot more difficult." Rossi observed. "Do we have dental records on any of them yet? We're going to have to rely entirely on victimology with this case. We need to know who they are, and what the connection between them is."

"Here's the thing about that." Garcia pressed another button. The image zoomed in on one of the skulls. "Whoever this is, keeps the teeth."

The skull on the screen was missing every last tooth, both upper and lower.

J.J. threw her hands up. "Well that just about makes our job impossible."

"Which is where I come in." A new voice spoke from the doorway. It belonged to a six foot tall blonde woman wearing a rumpled navy blue blazer with an equally rumpled orange and white striped polo shirt and a pair of skinny jeans. She had an over-large rolling suitcase on the floor next to her and a carry-on bag draped over one shoulder.

Hotchner looked behind him and started to stand. "Ah, perfect timing. Team, let me introduce you to..."

"Genevieve?!" Spencer Reid was on his feet, eyes wide as he took in the newcomer.

"Holy crap! Spencer, is that you?" Genevieve gasped, dropping the carry-on bag to the floor. "Oh my god! It's been forever!"

The two walked around the table until they met and hugged, although the hug was decidedly more fierce on Genevieve's part. Spencer pulled out of the hug first.

"Let me look at you – oh my god, of all the people to run into on this job!" Genevieve grinned, "Look at your hair! When did it get so fluffy?"

As Reid blushed, Hotchner cleared his throat. "I take it you two know each other?"

"We went to high school together." Genevieve replied, happily ruffling Reid's hair.

Reid ducked out from under her hand as a flurry of questions erupted from the room.

"What was he like in high school?" Morgan asked.

"What was he like outside of high school?" Came from J.J.

"Was he cute? I bet he was adorable!" That was from Garcia.

"Did you date?" the last was from Rossi.

"Whoa!" Genevieve put her hands up as if to ward them all off. "First of all, if I know Spencer, he is probably exactly now as he was both in and out of high school – way too smart for his own good, and inclined to take topics and run off at the mouth with them. Yes, he was always adorable – but you should have seen him on that first day of Freshmen year – I have a picture somewhere I can dig out. AND EWWWW."

She rounded on Rossi. "Need I remind you that he was 12 when he graduated, which made him 8 when he started! I'm six years older. I am many things – pedophile was never one of them."

"My apologies." Rossi nodded in difference to her. He gestured to Reid. "I've only known him like this; it's hard to believe sometimes that he didn't spring forth fully formed."

"Which makes him Venus in your analogy?" Genevieve grinned at Rossi, "I do concede your point though. I always felt like I was talking to someone my own age or older."

"Can we please get back to the case? There's nine people so far waiting for justice and a killer out there still possibly looking for a new victim." Hotchner raised his voice slightly.

Everyone looked slightly abashed.

"Of course." Genevieve blushed a bit at being taken to task. Morgan moved over a seat so she could have a spot next to Reid. She smiled her thanks at him and sat down at the table with them.

"As I was saying before my small high school reunion. I'm here to help identify the victims." She leaned on the table, crossing her arms in front of her. "My name is Genevieve Hardy – please call me Genna for short. I'm a forensic artist. I'm currently assigned to the Los Angeles FBI as part of their Special Investigations team. I've developed a technology that will help speed up the process of putting faces to those skulls."

"Your degree was in fine arts though." Reid broke in, puzzled.

"My first degree was in fine arts. My second is in computer science – coding specifically." Genna corrected him.

"A girl after my own heart." Garcia smiled at her.

"At any rate, normally a forensic artist takes exacting measurements, reproduces the skull through casting or molding, and then builds muscle layers, and finally skin with clay to form the face. We use the measurements to determine what kind of genetics the skull exhibits. People of African decent will have different facial markers than say, Native Americans. People of Icelandic decent are going to measure differently then people of Eastern European decent. It helps with determining likely skin colors, eye color and hair type."

"But the process takes a long time." Genna continued. "To streamline the process I designed a special scanner that takes the measurements for me, and a program that builds the skull in a three dimensional imaging program. The computer has been programmed with hundreds of thousands of scanned genetic samples – as many variations as I could get my hands on for every possible race and combination thereof. It builds their face. The imaging is good enough to run facial recognition software on them. I've identified hundreds of victims using my tech. My program has an accuracy of almost 97% compared to others currently on the market. Which is why, for the foreseeable future, I'm on loan to you."

"Impressive." Rossi said, admirably. "How soon can we expect to see results?"

"Scanning itself can take hours. I'll do the skulls first, of course." Genna explained. "But I will also scan the rest of the bones. The computer is fairly good at putting skeletons back together – it uses everything from the dimensional measurements to color, aging, and wear to reassemble the full body. Gives a family a better chance at laying most or all of their loved ones to rest. Each skull takes approximately two to three hours for the computer to flesh out. Honestly it depends on the condition the bones are in when they're brought to me. If I send the images over to your tech analyst..."

"That would be the wonderful me." Garcia interjected.

Genna nodded to her, "Then the facial recognition can be run on her end, freeing up my system to start reconstructing the next face. With nine victims – approximately 29 hours of working time. By hand this could take me months."

"That's astounding." Morgan remarked.

"You can admire me later." Genna grinned wryly. "Right now I need a place to set up Dinosaur."

"Dinosaur?" Garcia asked.

"My computer." Genna pointed to the over-sized rolling bag she'd left in the doorway. "When you hear the noise from all the fans it takes to cool that monster, you'll understand why I named it what I did."

"Well, then." Hotchner stood, stacking his files. "Garcia, get Genna set up in one of the auxiliary offices – get her whatever she needs to bring, ah – Dinosaur, on-line. Morgan, you and Reid will head to the park and the site. There may be something there that the local PD might not recognize as being significant. J.J. - I'm going to need you to field press on this. I have no reason to believe that local news hasn't picked up on this discovery yet. Rossi, you and Blake head to the coroner. Get their initial reports and see when the remains can be released to Genna for scanning and identification. I'll be coordinating with the locals. Ready?"

At the nods around the room he turned on his heels and left the room. "Then let's go."

The others started to file out of the room after him, stepping around Genna's things. Genna stopped Reid though, grabbing his arm.

"Hey you." She said firmly. "Cell number, now. You cannot possibly tell me you _still_ don't have one."

"No, I do." Reid answered. He rattled off the number and she entered it into her phone. She dialed the number he gave her and his phone rang.

"There, and now you have my number." She hung up. "I'm not letting you loose touch with me again."

She stepped around him and spoke to Garcia as she picked up her bags. "So, where do you want me?"

"Oh, right." Garcia gestured with one hand down the hallway. "This way."

The two women left. Reid and Morgan were alone.

"Reid?" Morgan made the name seem a question.

"I'm fine." Reid answered. "It's just that seeing her brings back a lot of memories."

"I'll bet." Morgan replied as he walked out with his partner on his heels. "And you better believe I'm going to grill you on every last one of them on the ride out to the national park."

Reid groaned and Morgan grinned ear to ear.

Genna followed Garcia down the hallway.

"So, what specifically will you need?" The tech analyst asked the other woman.

"Not a lot." Genna replied. "A large table where I can set up the scanner and Dinosaur, a comfortable chair, access to your wireless, and a mocha-chino. Actually, a lot of mocha-chinos. The more the merrier. I am seriously jet-lagged."

"I think I can arrange for all of that." Garcia stated. "Here, this room will be yours."

She opened a door, the room was about the size of two cubicles, painted a boring gray, with a single conference table and some rolling desk chairs. "I'm right next door. And those chairs are fine short term – horrible long term. I'll grab you one of my extras. Back in a jiff."

"Thanks," Genna said to Garcia's retreating form. She dropped her carry-on into one of the chairs and bent to pick up the rolling bag. "Ufff."

She grunted as she picked it up and carefully set it down on the table. Unzipping the sides of the bag, she removed rolls of air cushions from around her computer and scanning equipment. Lifting the PC out of the case she set it down on the table and searched for the nearest plugs. Finding them, she readjusted her computer's position and plugged it in. She went back to her bag and removed a monitor covered in bubble wrap. She unwrapped it and positioned it in front of her PC and hooked it up. Finally, she turned them both on. Dinosaur roared to life.

"Wow!" Garcia exclaimed from the doorway. "That thing does make a ton of noise!"

Genna turned to face her. Garcia had a black rolling chair with far more cushioning on it then the ones in the room and arms on it in front of her.

"Yeah." Genna acknowledged. "I would much rather have it in a bigger case where I can circulate air better but it had to be portable so cramming as many fans into it as I could was my solution. I have to open it up and clean it almost daily too, just to inspect everything and make sure nothing's come loose on the flight. I have to buy a seat for it since I'm terrified of what would happen if it flew in luggage."

"I can imagine." Garcia rolled her chair into the room, moving one of the existing ones out of the way and putting hers in its place. She fished the mouse out of the case and made sure the wireless dongle was plugged in. Following that was the keyboard.

The monitor flashed to life and asked for a password. Genna sat down in the new chair and typed it in. The main screen opened up. The only programs on the desktop were an Internet browser, and two icons Garcia had never seen before.

"What are those?" She pointed.

"This, is the scanner program and that one is the reconstruction program." Genna answered. Once the basics of the system were hooked up she pulled out another set of odd looking equipment that was triple wrapped in air cushions.

"What's that?"

"Scanning wand and stand." Genna replied, unwrapping the items. She quickly put together a frame that looked a bit like a cube. The scanning wand sat on a roller-like device at the top of the cube. Genna put it into place and turned it on. A red laser light activated and the unit rolled to the end of the cube frame and did a test scan, moving from the back to the front and then reset itself.

"All right, that's all set." Genna sat back down in the chair and opened both programs. While they booted up, she swiveled around to Garcia. "Well, all I need now are body parts."

"Ugh, that's up there in the top ten of creepy things you can legitimately say on the job." Garcia made a face.

"So, that coffee – is there a good place around here? Walking distance where I can't get myself lost?" Genna asked, stretching.

"Even better." Garcia smiled and pulled out her cell phone. "I know someone who delivers."

"Really?" Genna was surprised.

"Yes," Garcia replied. "It's called, I get my boyfriend Sam to bring it over."

Genna laughed as Garcia called Sam.

"Soooo..." Agent Derek Morgan was driving the black SUV assigned to them. Spencer Reid was in the passenger seat studying the folders of photos from the crime scene.

"So, what?" Spencer replied flatly as he picked one photo up and studied it closely.

"Genevieve Hardy."

"What about her?"

"Why haven't we ever heard about her before?" Morgan sighed, knowing it was pointless to get angry with Reid for not volunteering information. "She greeted you like you were her long lost family."

"I lost touch with her sometime in my early twenties." Reid replied. "I honestly hadn't thought about her in a long time. I guess it just never occurred to me that any of you would want to hear about my high school friend."

"Friend? Singular? You didn't have any other friends?" Morgan asked, concerned.

"I had several people I would have considered acquaintances," Reid answered. "But only one person I really considered a close friend. Genevieve's been my friend since my first day of high school. She really helped me..."

"Helped you do what?" Morgan pushed when Reid trailed off.

"Her father's ex-military." Reid explained in the roundabout way. "He'd taught her all the basics of hand to hand combat. Apparently, when she was in middle school, she earned herself a reputation as a scrapper. The only fights she was ever in though were ones in which she was defending someone getting picked on."

"She protected people getting bullied." Morgan gave a small smile. "I can get behind that. So, she protected you too."

Reid nodded. "Most of our basic classes were together – you know, Social Studies, Literature, etc. She was my unofficial escort everywhere. Things weren't great for those four years – she couldn't be with me all the time, after all – or take on large groups – but I know things could have been a lost worse if she hadn't been there."

"Well then, I'm glad she was." Morgan answered.

"Me too." Reid replied.

Morgan glanced sidelong at Reid and grinned wickedly. "You ever had a crush on her?"

Reid sighed and put his photos down on his lap. "Really?"

"Come on," Morgan took one hand off the wheel to nudge his partner's shoulder. "You know I'm not going to leave you alone. And if you don't tell me the others are just going to nag you about it."

Reid sighed more heavily, closing his eyes and rubbing them. "At first, no. I mean, I was eight. Girls still largely had cooties – even nice ones that kicked the bully from the football team in the balls to keep you from being stuffed in a locker. But as I got older, of course I liked her. She's smart, pretty and she was always there for me. She was a good friend, but that was all that was ever going to happen though. I _am_ six years younger then her. She always looked for her dates in boys her own age. With time, I gave up on the idea and moved on."

"Six years might have been insurmountable then, but it's not that big of a deal now." Morgan observed, trying to sound causal.

"Six years of an age difference and about a twelve years of separation still seems like a pretty good obstacle." Reid observed. He had no regret in his voice; he was merely making an observation.

"She seemed pretty happy to see you again." Morgan went on as if Reid hadn't spoken. "She held that hug longer then you – and quite frankly, I've never seen you let anyone touch you like that – the hug, the hair ruffling, when she grabbed your arm on the way out. You don't tolerate that from anyone, not really. You may have more of a chance than you think."

"It's not that she's the one who got away; she's the one who never was. I guess when I was a teenager I had some fantasy in my head that she was just waiting for me to grow up but I was wrong." Reid rolled his eyes at Morgan. "I was just a kid she looked after. Someone she babysat, for Pete's Sake. She treats me like she would treat her own kid brother. Actually, she _is_ an only child. I probably _was_ a substitute for a sibling."

"I'm sorry, Reid." Morgan did sound contrite. "I didn't mean to hit a sore spot. It's kind of hard not to pry. You don't normally volunteer a lot information about yourself."

"I don't mean to be reticent ." Reid frowned a bit. "It just honestly doesn't occur to me that anyone would want to know."

"I know, Reid." Morgan reassured him. "Don't worry about it. No one takes it personally."

Before Reid could answer they pulled up into the Park's parking lot. A ranger and two officers were waiting for them.

As they pulled into a parking space and climbed out, one of the officers walked over to them. "Agents Morgan and Reid?"

"That's us." Morgan replied, clicking the lock on the key fob. Reid flashed his credentials at the man to confirm.

"Hope you're prepared to walk." The officer told them. "I'm Officer Guzman. Boss told me to escort you to the scene, and to help in any other way you may need."

"Lead on then." Morgan gestured in front of him. "Is that one of the rangers who found the scene?"

"Ah, yes. The other man got sick to his stomach – we sent him home to recover." Guzman answered.

"We'll need to speak to both of them, but it can wait till after we've seen the scene." Reid told the officer.

"It's a good two mile hike out there. Should take about a half an hour." Guzman eyed Reid, implying he wasn't sure if the other man could make it.

Reid sighed but started on the trail indicated while Morgan chuckled at him.

Rossi and Blake got to the coroner's office only a bit before Morgan and Reid got to the national park.

The conversation had been all business on the way in.

"So do you think the teeth taking is entirely a forensic counter-measure or is this unsub taking them as trophies?" Blake asked Rossi.

"I don't know. " Rossi admitted. "It could be both. It's hard to tell. It could even be his signature or evidence that we're dealing with a sadist – especially if they were taken while the victims were still alive."

Blake sighed. "This is going to be a weird one."

"No doubt of that." Rossi flashed his badge to the clerk at the front desk of the office. "Agents Rossi and Blake to see the coroner in charge of the Washington Park case."

"Right. We were told to expect you." The man said. "This way."

He led them down the hall and to the cold storage room. "Right through here, Agents."

The two walked in to see tables of tagged bones in bags. One man was moving through them, double checking the tags against his paperwork on his clipboard.

Rossi cleared his throat to get the man's attention as the clerk went back to his desk.

The man looked up.

"Hi, I'm Agent Rossi," He gestured to his partner. "This is Agent Blake. We're here from the B.A.U."

"So you're here to take them all off my hands then?" The man asked.

"We were hoping for a preliminary report, Mr...?" Blake prompted.

"Oh, sorry." He jumped a little, shaking himself. "I'm John Anderson. Sorry, we don't get cases like this normally. It's usually drunk drivers who wrapped themselves around poles or kids who got too high or old people with heart attacks – not mass graves with skulls missing every last tooth. Ups the creepy factor, you know?"

"We understand." Blake replied. "So, not a single tooth in any skull?"

"Yeah." Anderson answered, moving to one of the skulls in particular. "Look, this one's even had the impacted wisdom teeth pulled out. They were still in the jawbone, un-irrupted."

Rossi and Blake looked at the damaged jawbone.

"So there's no way this is just a forensic counter-measure. The teeth were somehow important to the unsub." Rossi observed. "That's a lot of effort to dig teeth out that wouldn't help with identification."

"A ritual of some kind perhaps?" Blake speculated. "The teeth mean something special to this unsub? Whoever it is is almost certainly keeping them as trophies."

"That's gross." Anderson interjected. "There's no obvious cause of death. No blunt force trauma – save for the pulled teeth. I honestly can't tell if it was done post or pre-mortum. I hope for these poor bastards it was after. Of the nine, four are female and five are male. They appear to be in their late twenties or early thirties at the time of death. The oldest of them looks likes it's been in the ground for about five years or so. This one..."

He pointed to another table. "That skull looks like it's only been in the ground about a year or so. I found no marks or nicks on the bones that indicated a bladed weapon used although that guy.." He pointed to a femur on another table. "..managed to break his leg at some point. There's signs of healed growth. I have no way of knowing if it's related to the manner of death or not. Honestly, the only thing I can really tell you – is that these bones are all really spotless. Outside of the dirt and mud they were in; they're clean. No skin remains, no clothing fibers, no trace of muscle tissues, no nothing."

"Maybe this unsub cleans the bodies himself." Rossi speculated. "Does something to remove all the flesh before burial."

"Some acids would do that." Anderson offered. "Hell, there's a beetle that does that. A lot of Forensic Anthropologists use the beetles to help clean bones for study."

"Right, the Dermestid beetles can clean flesh." Rossi nodded. "I hope our Forensic Artist can get some ID on these victims soon or we'll be months trying to figure this out."

"You want to take them with you?" The coroner asked. "I was told to release them to the FBI when I was done, and honestly, there isn't much on these bones I can tell you any more about."

"We'll take the skulls back with us." Rossi told him. "The rest you can send over at your leisure."

"All right then." Anderson went to get a box for the skulls.

Rossi and Blake turned to each other.

"So, we have a possible sadist who has a compulsive need to remove teeth – even the ones that aren't irrupted." Blake summarized. "He's probably male, he'd need a lot of physical strength and endurance to pull every tooth from each victim, including digging the impacted ones out."

"True." Rossi agreed. "So he's been working for at least five years and gone undetected all this time. We might still not know about him if it weren't for the flood. So he's got to be highly intelligent and able to control his need to kill. He probably blends well into his community for him to go unnoticed this long."

"It's likely he's the same age as his victims." Blake continued the train of thought. "Maybe these aren't random killings but rather specific targets?"

Anderson returned with a large evidence box. He placed each skull inside, carefully packing them to prevent damage. He placed the lid on top of the box and taped it shut.

"All right," He said to the agents. "I just need you to sign here and they are all yours. When I'm done with my cataloging I'll send the rest over."

"Thanks for your help." Rossi told him as he signed the paperwork and then passed it back. Rossi picked up the box and he and Blake turned to go.

"And agents?" Anderson called after them.

They paused in the doorway and looked back.

"Good luck."

"Thanks. We'll need it." Blake said grimly as they left.

Garcia and Genna were sitting in the room where Dinosaur and the scanner were set up, laughing over something on the computer screen when Blake and Rossi returned. They were sitting side by side both holding coffee cups from the shop not far from where Garcia lives and looked thick as thieves.

"Well, did we miss the invitation to the party?" Rossi asked, putting the box down.

"Oh!" Garcia whirled in her chair. "You have got to see these pictures!"

Blake leaned over Genna's chair. "Oh my god, is that...Spencer?"

"Yep, age 10. That's me beside him. I was 16." Genna pointed. "My dad had taken us to the community pool. He's the one who took the photo."

Rossi leaned in over Garcia's chair to get a good look. Spencer was wearing a pair of red swim trunks and no shirt, posed on the left side of the photo, body in profile but looking straight at the camera. He was making a muscle with one arm (or trying to – he really didn't have any) and had a very serious face on. On the right side of the photo was Genna, blonde hair down, wearing a blue one piece in a similar pose. The two stood back to back. She towered over him by a good foot.

"That is seven different kinds of adorable." Blake said. "Please tell me you're emailing that to everyone."

"Not a chance." Genna clicked the photo off. "I still want him to talk to me. You guys can however, have this one."

She clicked on another photo. This time it was a twelve year old Spencer with an eighteen year old Genna. They were both in graduation robes and caps, both were flashing a peace sign with one hand and holding their diplomas with the other. Spencer had slightly caught up to Genna in height – he was now as high as her shoulder.

"Spence's mom took that one." Genna told them. "Dad was working two jobs at the time and couldn't finagle getting to attend."

"Aww," Garcia uttered, though it was unclear whether it was in response to the photo or to Genna's dad missing her graduation. "Send that to me. I'll forward it."

"Done and done." Genna did so.

"You've already exchanged emails?" Rossi asked.

"Had to. I need to be able to send her the photos once the skulls are reconstructed." Genna answered. "Which brings me to ask - what's in the box?"

"Your skulls." Rossi answered.

"Thought so." Genna stood up. "Penny, could you get me a box of latex gloves? I don't want to handle them barehanded."

"Of course, my dear Genna." Garcia stood, typing something on her phone. "Just as soon as I finish this..."

Rossi and Blake's phones both buzzed. They checked them, only to find the picture Garcia had forwarded.

Garcia hustled out of the room.

"Penny?" Blake asked. "I didn't think anyone was allowed to call her that."

"I have special compensation on account of the fact that we both have celebrity crushes on the same Dr. Who actor." Genna got up and went to open the box.

A smile pulled at Rossi's mouth. "David _Tennant_ ?"

"How'd you know?" Genna asked.

"Lucky guess."

"What was a lucky guess?" Garcia came back in with the box of gloves.

"That we both like David _Tennant_ ." Genna replied as she pulled a pair out of the box and put them on. She pulled the first skull out of the box.

"And this is where I leave." Garcia paled a bit at the sight of the skull. "I'll be next door if you need me."

"Gotcha." Genna answered absently, already involved in studying the skull. "Female, Caucasian, if I'm not missing my mark. Younger then I am now. The plate fusion is almost complete – early twenties? Well, let's get you scanned mystery woman."

She placed the skull in the center of the cube stand, sat back down at the computer and opened one of her programs. The red laser light kicked on and the scanner bar started to move. As it finished each pass, Genna rotated the skull to a new side and let it scan again.

Blake and Rossi watched, fascinated by the process. As each pass was made a new composite image appeared on the screen.

"So, you have to scan it from each side?" Rossi asked.

"Yes." Genna answered as she moved the skull for each pass. "there are box scanners that can do each side at once, but they're not portable. They're also expensive which means departments can't always afford them. It's cheaper to ship me and Dinosaur then buy a scanner for every forensic department."

"Wow." Blake blinked as she imagined the cost. "So you wind up traveling a lot, then?"

"I'd actually just gotten back to L.A. from Texas when I got told to turn around and get back on a plane out here." Genna yawned as if to accentuate her point. She finished the first skull and set it gently aside. She reached into the box and pulled out the second one, giving it the same study the first one got. "Also female. Appears Caucasian on the surface, but.."

"But?" Rossi prompted when she drifted off.

"Cheek bone height is a bit off, so is the depth and height of the nasal passages. This one might be half white and half black." She continued. "The computer will know. That's another reason to use my system. I've programmed hundreds of different mixed races into it. Normal systems can't usually tell what a bi-racial person is."

"So we've got one white and one possible mixed race victim." Blake said. "Not much to go on but it's a start."

"And you'll have more to go on if you leave me to work." Genna chided gently. "Now that I have something to work on, I'd like to get to it."

"Of course." Rossi agreed.

"I'll let Garcia know the minute Dinosaur spits out a face." Genna called after them as they left.

"Now there's something you don't hear every day." Blake joked as the two walked away.

Agent Hotchner's phone buzzed. He had just finished up interviews with the officers first on the scene and talking with the local chief and was about to leave the station. He checked his phone. It was an email from Garcia.

Opening the attachment, he saw the photo of what was clearly a young Genevieve and Spencer in their graduation robes. He couldn't help but smile. "Reid's going to kill her when he sees this." He muttered to himself. He was honestly not even sure if the 'she' he meant was Garcia or Genevieve.

He walked out to the SUV and unlocked it. As he was putting his briefcase in the backseat, J.J. walked up. "Oh my god, Hotch, did you see the photo Garcia sent us?"

He grinned at her. "Yes. Which one do you think is going to be more in trouble – Garcia for sending it, or Genevieve for sharing it in the first place?"

"Mmmm, tough call." J.J. pretended to frown. "Either way, I have to be there when he confronts them."

"How's it going on the press front?" Hotch changed the topic.

"I've gotten the local press to agree to hold the story until we're ready to release the profile." J.J. replied. "It doesn't seem like any national stations have hit on this yet. We do have the cooperation of local stations though. They're waiting on it in exchange for better details later."

"Good." Hotch nodded, pleased. "There's a good chance that the unsub doesn't know that his disposal ground has been disturbed yet. We may be able to keep him from going to ground if he thinks he's still moving undetected."

"Right." J.J. walked around to the other side of the SUV and got in. Hotch climbed behind the wheel and started the drive home.

Morgan and Reid had made it out to the site, with only Reid a little worse for the wear. He bent over and leaned on his knees, puffing slightly.

"Oh come on, Reid." Morgan teased. "Don't tell me that tired you out? You know I would be happy to train you again – get you running the mile every day."

"Not on your life." Reid pushed past Morgan and stood, surveying the scene. He stared at it, brow furrowed.

"What's been found upstream from here?" Morgan asked Guzman.

"Honestly, not a lot." The officer answered. "There's so much mud run-off. You can tell there was multiple mudslides. We think we have a point of origin for the start of the mudslides but we can't be sure. On the plus side, we haven't found anything downstream in the water or on either side of the banks."

"Which means the nine bodies that were uncovered here are likely all that was buried." Morgan postulated.

"We can hope." Reid replied. He asked their escort. "How much soil erosion did the river cause when it flooded?"

"Rangers say that a good five to six feet of height along this bank was lost." Guzman answered.

"Which means then, it is very likely this _is_ the burial site, and the top soil covering them was swept away." Reid said. "So what is significant about this site?"

"We know there's one hiking trail that runs by this point." Morgan said. "What else is near here?"

"Two more trails – an easier graded one then the one we came up, and one on the other side of the river." The officer answered. "There's a bridge between this trail and that one about a mile downriver. Most people come up here just to hike or to raft downriver. There's a spot for launching your raft about two miles north of here. Bunch of people fish in various spots up and down here."

"How busy is it normally?" Reid asked.

"Right now, not very. Season doesn't officially open till the middle of May. Stays busy until the middle of September."

"So there's a good portion of the year where he'd be able to come and go without being seen by anyone using the trails or river." Morgan stated.

"He might be local," Reid speculated. "This shows a level of comfort and knowledge with the area as well as being a place he could easily revisit to relive his kills without anyone being the wiser."

"Physical strength, and endurance to get out here, while carrying a body." Morgan added. "I think we're definitely looking for a male in prime condition."

"It's not unreasonable to assume he also has woodcraft, or is an experienced hiker or even is a rafter himself." Reid added.

"Rafting could be another way he can visit the kills." Morgan agreed.

"I think that's all we're going to get from here without having the scene be more intact." Reid stated.

"I agree." Morgan turned to Guzman. "I think we're good here."

"All right, then." The officer answered. "We'll head back."

Reid groaned softly as they followed him down the trail back towards the parking lot.

Once they were out of the densest part of the forest, both Morgan and Reid's phone's buzzed.

"Email from Garcia." Morgan checked his. "Wonder if one of the others has found something already."

He opened the attachment and immediately started laughing.

"What it is?" Reid asked, curious.

"Check your phone."

The younger man did so. He cursed. "I'm going to kill her."

"Which her?"

"Possibly both." Reid answered.

"You were adorable." Morgan told his partner with an ear to ear grin.

"I'm _still_ adorable." Reid answered curtly and walked faster as Morgan laughed.

Morgan and Reid were the last ones to get back to the office. The rest were already around the table comparing notes. They quieted as Reid walked in.

"Genna's right. You're hair is way fluffier now." J.J. spoke first.

This set off a round of giggles that Hotchner quieted with one raised hand.

"And where would that particular traitor be?" Reid asked with false lightness.

"She's still scanning the skulls." Garcia said. "Oh, please don't be mad. The picture was just so cute and we've never seen photos of you as a kid and the one I wanted to send everyone was way worse but she wouldn't let me."

"You've seen more?" Reid rubbed his forehead as if struck with sudden pain.

"Yeah. Well, I have." Garcia admitted. "We had a good hour and a half of down time while we waited for Rossi and Blake to get back with the skulls."

"We did see the one of you two at the community pool." Blake confessed.

"I couldn't decide if you were just a really short kid or if Genevieve was just a really tall one." Rossi added.

Reid whimpered softly keeping his eyes closed.

"I was a ridiculously tall kid." Genna said from just behind him. "I've been six feet tall pretty much since 8th grade. To be honest, I was kind of surprised to see he'd caught up to me. What are you now? 6' 3"?"

"Do I count the fluffy hair or not?" Spence asked ruefully. She laughed.

Genna draped an arm across the back of his shoulders. "Look on the bright side Spence. No one saw the Halloween costumes."

"Oh, now we have to." Morgan insisted.

"Not a chance." Reid bumped his elbow into Genna's side.

She held her hands up in defeat. "I agree on that. Those weren't exactly flattering to me either."

"Sent two faces to you Penny." Genna said, turning from Reid. "The computer's still working on the other two."

"Oh! Great." She started typing on her laptop. "Got them. Running facial recognition now."

"I've gotten all the female skulls scanned." Genna slid into an open seat. Reid followed and took his own chair. "I still need to do the males but I wanted to get reconstruction started and get some of them identified."

"Great. Thanks." Hotch said to her. "We were just comparing notes. Rossi, if you would go back over what you and Blake were discussing after the visit to the coroner?"

The older man quickly went back over their theories.

"That jives with what Reid and I were thinking." Morgan jumped in and added their own ideas to the others.

"This is good." Hotchner stated. "This narrows our possible range of territory for the unsub."

J.J. jumped in. "Perhaps he's taking his victims from people visiting the park? Taking a stranger would help him avoid people close to him realizing that others were disappearing."

"It's possible." Reid mused. He opened his mouth to add to the statement but was interrupted by Garcia.

"Bingo-bango my friends!" She called out. "We have a match on the first face."

She typed rapidly and then reached for her remote for the big screens. "Here, is the face Genna's computer came up with."

A computer generated 3D image of a blonde woman, mid-twenties, blue eyes appeared on the screen. "And here is the one that pinged on my missing person's search."

A photo almost identical to the computer generated one appeared. "Meet Claudia Jones, age 24, she's been missing for almost three and a half years. She was a graduate student from Berkly studying Anthropology, she was here visiting her aunt and cousins. She was out with her cousin Anna when they lost track of each other at a club. Anna was the one who called the police after she got home and Claudia wasn't there. She told cops that Claudia knew to go home if they got separated – that she would never leave with a stranger."

"So the club could be a hunting ground?" Blake said eagerly.

"Getting the name and address now." Garcia answered.

"Any luck on the second face?" Hotch asked.

"Not yet." Garcia sounded apologetic. "Still going through missing persons. If nothing comes back I'll widen the search."

"The first face is a perfect match." J.J. stared at the computer generated image to the photo. "Except for the hair style it's dead on."

"The algorithm is programmed to find hairstyles that were popular in the year we think the victim died." Genna leaned forward. "Honestly, the computer takes it's best guess with hairstyle. Everything else is based off of pure science, height of cheekbones, depth of eyes and length of nose, even muscle heights, and set of the ears."

"Can we see what the second victim looks like?" Rossi asked. Garcia complied to his request and split the screen between the first and second victim.

"Now here, skin color is a best guess." Genna said apologetically. "The measurements clearly indicate a mixed race woman. Half white and half black. But she could be a lot darker than this, or a lot lighter. Actually, Garcia you might want to eliminate skin color as a search criteria and just go off facial points."

"Doing so now." The other woman replied, intent on her task. "And, oh! There she is."

She pressed another button on her remote and the second photo appeared. The woman was two tones darker then the computer rendering but the facial details were still identical.

"This is Raven McCormick." Garcia read through the profile. "She was a 22 year old student from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was here on a class trip with her art history professor. Her class was making its rounds of the national monuments and museums. They split into small groups for easier touring. Let's see..."

She scrolled further down. "It says here on the third day of the trip, Raven never showed up for that day's tour. The rest of the group reported her to their professor who had her hotel room checked only to find it empty. Her belongings were there but no sign Raven had ever returned to it the night before."

"So both are college students, both are here visiting." Blake said. "It's a lot more then we had before."

"I'll go check Dinosaur and see if she's finished with the other two yet."

Genna got up and left.

"This is good. We've got the beginning of a pattern, and once we get the next face identified we'll have that pattern confirmed and can start forming a complete profile." Hotchner encouraged his team.

"Email from Genna. No luck yet – computer's still compiling the last two faces." Garcia read out loud.

"Then there's nothing left to tonight besides get some rest." Hotch told them. "Go home, get some sleep."

They all nodded and started collecting their things to leave. As they filed out, Garcia tugged on Hotch's arm and whispered. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course."

While Hotch and Garcia stayed to talk, the others left, saying their good-night's. Reid stopped for a moment, and then turned down the hallway towards Garcia's office. As he suspected, Genna was in the room next to Garcia's, still working. She was scanning the first of the male skulls. He watched her quietly for a moment as she checked each scan before turning the skull for the next pass of the scanner.

"Were you planning on working all night?" Reid finally interrupted the silence.

Genna jumped and shrieked. Whirling, she yelled at Reid. "Jesus, Spence! You scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry." He didn't sound sorry. "So, were you planning on working all night?"

"The sooner I get this done, the sooner you guys can catch this monster, right?"

"Hotchner doesn't expect you to go without sleep though to get this done." Reid said calmly.

"Yeah, well, he'd be the first boss to do so." Genna muttered under her breath as she redid the scan she'd messed up when Reid startled her.

Reid frowned. She hadn't whispered as quietly as she'd thought.

"Do you have a place to stay tonight?" He asked.

"I was just going to crash on one of the couches in the lounge." Genna answered. She completed the scan and rotated the skull, triggering the next scan.

"Genna..." Reid hesitated and then changed what he was going to say. "You should really get some sleep in a proper bed. Trust me, those couches are not comfortable."

"Then I'll book a hotel room." She sighed, sounding exasperated. The scan was finished. She laid the skull next to the others she'd completed.

"You're not going to be able to book a room at any place good this late." Spencer rocked back and forth on his heels. "You could stay with me."

She turned to face him. "Oh Spence, I couldn't. I don't want to put you out like that."

"It's really no problem at all." He held his hands up as if to forestall any other arguments from her. "And, I know a really good place we could pick up some Tandoori Chicken from on the way home. It would be nice; you know, to just have dinner and catch up."

She studied him for a moment. Her face softened and she smiled. "Damn you for knowing my weakness in the face of Tandoori Chicken. All right. You talked me into it."

She turned back to Dinosaur and typed something into it. The screen went blank.

"Locked the keyboard." She explained. "It's still running the reconstruction programs but no one can mess with it until I get back. Hopefully in the morning we'll have three more faces for Penny to run through facial recognition."

She bent and picked up her carry-on bag. "All right, Spencer. Lead the way."

He held an arm out for her. She paused briefly before smiling and hooking her own arm through his. They left together.

"What did you want to speak about Garcia?" Hotchner asked her.

"It's about Genevieve." Garcia started to speak and the hesitated.

"Is there something I should know?" Hotchner prompted.

"We had a chance to talk while she was setting up and before the skulls got delivered." Garcia started and then paused, trying to frame her thoughts. "And well, some of her answers to things seemed off."

"How so?"

"I asked her what it was like living in L.A. and she didn't quite dodge the question just redirected it to talk about the places she'd visited for cases." Garcia explained.

"That's not exactly a crime. She could just be a private person, like Reid." Hotch raised an eyebrow at his tech analyst.

"That's not all, she dodged questions about her team, her boss, and her own home." Garcia continued. "She answered questions about growing up with Reid easily enough, or about different cases she'd worked on but was steadfastly silent on her work with the L.A. F.B.I."

Hotch didn't respond, just waited for Garcia to add more detail.

"So, I did some checking." Garcia held up her hands as if to forestall a lecture. "I know, I know, she's part of the F.B.I. She's our teammate, and Spencer's friend so we should trust her but I still needed to know more."

"That curiosity is what makes you good at your job." He smiled patiently at her. "What did you find?"

"She's been traveling almost non-stop for the past four years solving cases all over the U.S. She's rarely ever in L.A. for longer then a few days to a week. She let her apartment lease go when it came up three and a half years ago but there's no new lease being signed or new properties bought, she didn't answer any roommate adds, or anything. Everyone, no matter what your status collects _things_. Except she hasn't bought so much as a light bulb in the past four years. No new clothes, no furniture, no jewelry, no art, no nothing to decorate a home with. She has no purchases of anything besides e-books and e-music, food and hotels. As far as I could tell, she's functionally homeless. "

"What?" That caught Hotchner off guard.

"There's more." Garcia continued. "She has one self-storage unit she started paying rent on just before the lease on her place was dropped. She's got strings of hotel receipts from places in L.A. near her team's headquarters. I think she's living entirely in hotels when she is home – and she's not home often. She hasn't taken so much as a sick day in nearly four years. Not a single personal day or vacation day, nothing. Sometimes she's barely back in L.A. for more then a few hours before she's sent out again. Actually, that's what happened here for our case – she got in on a five am flight and was back in the air by seven am."

"And none of her superiors have noticed any of this?" Hotch was incredulous.

"That's another thing." Garcia sounded reluctant to continue. "Her boss, Tyler Reynolds. He's not a nice man."

"Can you elaborate on that?"

"Well, he's got dozens of complaints against him by former employees. All of which were eventually dismissed as the ramblings of people disgruntled by being passed over for promotion." She did allow for that extra fact. "But here's the thing – there are dozens, I mean literally dozens of complaints from former employees only – not current ones. No one who filed a complaint against him did so until they were well out of his reach."

Hotch narrowed his brows. "Go on."

"Except the complaints stopped once Genvieve started working for his team." Garcia went on. "People have transferred out since then but have filed no complaints. However, I have found interoffice emails where former employees were talking about him and how they wouldn't want to be in her shoes for the world. One stated 'better her than me.' I can forward them to you."

"Please do so." Hotchner requested. "Send me everything you uncovered."

"Gotcha boss man." Garcia turned to start packing up her laptop. She looked back up at Hotchner. "Can we help her? I really like her. I don't want to think about her being literally worked to death."

"First, I need to look into a few things." He answered. "Then we'll see."

Two people were laughing as they walked up a flight of stairs. One, a tall blonde woman was carrying a small travel bag over her shoulders. The other, a man, only a few inches in height above her carried a plastic bag with a paper bag insert. The scent of Thai food wafted down the hallway.

"Hey, my place is this first one on the left." Spencer told her, gesturing with her free hand.

She took the bag of food from him as he fumbled for his keys. He unlocked the door and held it open for her. She entered first and put the food down on the coffee table in the middle of the room. She turned in a circle taking the whole place in.

"I gotta say," Genna said, "This is kind of how I pictured it. I knew you would have floor to ceiling bookcases."

"Yeah, I may have a small book addiction." He smiled at her.

"Small?" She pointed to a pile next to a chair by the window. "Isn't that side table made of books?"

"Possibly." He answered nonchalantly. He pointed over his shoulder towards the kitchen. "I'm grabbing a plate, you want one?"

"Nah, I'm not that fancy. I'll eat from the containers." Genna flopped down on the couch and kicked off her shoes. "Just grab me a fork."

He nodded and went into the kitchen to get what they needed. He came back with a plate for himself, silverware for the both of them, and a pile of napkins. When Spencer sat down he started unpacking the bag.

"Ah, this one is yours...and this." He handed her the containers. "These are mine."

He also pulled two bottled waters out of the bag and cracked one open, putting it in front of her.

"Why, what a gentleman." She smiled. She opened the first container, took a fork and dived in. "God, I was starving. Airline food and mocha-chinos are not exactly filling."

They ate in companionable silence for a few moments before she spoke again.

"You were totally right about this place. This is one of the best Tandooris I've had in a long time."

"You don't have any good Thai places near you?"

"Nothing like this." She answered. "So, how long have you been out here?"

"I joined the BAU when I was 22." He answered. "I've been with this team ever since. They're an assorted bunch, but I like them. It's like working with a very strange eclectic family."

"I like them too." Genna said in-between bites. "Especially Garcia. That woman really knows her David Tennant trivia."

"Yeah, she does. Hey, what was with you calling her Penny?" Spencer turned to her, with a quizzical look. "I've never heard anyone on the team dare call her that."

"We were talking about the over-fancy names our folks gave us and different nicknames we've had through the years." Genna told him, pausing to take a sip of water. "When she told me she hated being called Penny, I just had to start calling her that immediately."

"You know retaliation is impending then."

"Very likely. She'll probably corner you tomorrow for something embarrassing to use against me."

"And you trust me with that amount of power?" Spencer asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"Of course I trust you." She sounded offended. Then she grinned wickedly. "Besides, I could always show everyone your prom photos."

"You wouldn't." Spencer sounded horrified.

"I might."

They drifted into a momentary silence again.

"God." Genna whispered.

"What?"

"22." Genna repeated. "I think the last letter I got from you was from just before you joined the academy. You were 20, I think. Sheesh that makes me feel old."

Spencer tried to ask the question as casually as he could. "Why didn't you ever answer that letter?"

"Oh, Spence. I'm so sorry." She sounded genuinely regretful. "I was so insanely busy. The forensic department I was assigned to did everything by hand. My case load was crazy. I'd started going back to school at the same time for my other degree. None of which are good reasons to leave a friend hanging, I know. By the time I realized I'd never answered you it felt awkward. Like too much time had passed. I was certain by then that you'd have been mad at me or just busy with your own life and wouldn't have the time for me anymore either. I thought about writing you a lot over the years but it always seemed like there was just this insurmountable gap."

"I get that." He sounded sad as he picked at his food.

The silence that descended this time felt heavier, more stiff. Genevieve finally sighed and put her food down on the table.

"Could I make use of your shower?" She asked.

"Oh, of course." He put his own food down and stood, glad to have the distraction. He showed her where the bathroom is, pulling out an extra towel for her. She got her overnight bag and disappeared into the bathroom. He returned to the couch to finish eating.

He was just finishing putting away the leftovers when he heard the water turn off. Genna walked out about five minutes later to find him fixing up a bed on the couch. He looked up as she walked in. She was wearing a pair of gray yoga shorts and a gray Star Trek t-shirt, and she was using the towel to dry her hair. Something gold glinted around her neck.

He looked closer. "Oh my god. Is that..."

"What?" She stopped drying her hair, letting the towel fall down over one shoulder.

"Are you wearing the pendent I gave you?"

She fingered the little gold pendent that sat on the gold chain she was wearing. It was a tiny artist's palette. "Yes, I am."

"You still have it?" He couldn't believe his eyes.

"Of course I still have it." Genna's tone softened. "It was a gift from my oldest and dearest friend. I promised you I would always wear it, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but I never really expected..." He drifted off. He looked her in the eyes. "Thank you. It means a lot that you kept it."

Unaccountably, she blushed and broke eye contact. Genna hastily changed the subject. "So is this for me?"

She pointed to the blankets and pillow on the couch.

"Ah, no. It's for me." Spencer told her. "You're taking my bedroom."

"No I'm not." She said forcefully. "You already treated me to dinner and took me in during my stay here – I'm not kicking you out of your own bed."

"I insist."

"Absolutely not."

The two bickered light heartedly back and forth for a while. Spencer finally won through sheer stubbornness. She threw her hands up into the air and gave in.

"Fine! I'll take your bed." She agreed. "But if you can't sleep, you wake me up immediately and we'll switch."

"That won't happen, but okay." Spencer could afford to be magnanimous now that he'd won their mock-fight.

She made a noise of annoyance, turned and stomped out of the room.

"Good night!" He called after her.

She stopped in the doorway of the bedroom. Turning, she smiled over her shoulder at him. "Good night, Spence."

She closed the door softly behind her. He pulled off his own shoes and settled down on the couch, reaching out for a book on the table. He smiled as he read.

Morgan and Garcia arrived to work at the same time. Walking in together they exchanged notes on Reid and Hardy.

"He really said that?" Garcia made a sad sound. "The one that never was. Oh, that is heartbreaking."

"Yeah, except he didn't sound heartbroken. Just accepting of the situation." Morgan replied.

"She does talk about him like he's a kid brother." Garcia admitted. "But they are so darned cute together! We have to meddle."

"No, we don't." Morgan spoke sternly to her. "Baby doll...this isn't some fictional show where you can ship your favorite characters. These are real people with real lives – you cannot interfere."

"Interfere with what?" Reid asked.

The two turned, looking mildly guilty. Genna and Reid were right behind them. Genna was wearing the same rumpled blazer as yesterday but had switched out the striped shirt for a solid cranberry colored one. She held an ice coffee in one hand and the other was looped through Reid's arm, just as it had been last night when they'd left.

"Oh, you know me, just being a busy body again." Garcia turned and fled.

"What was that all about?" Reid asked Morgan.

"Just Garcia being Garcia." Morgan excused her behavior. He nodded at Genna's arm in the crook of Reid's elbow. "And what is this? You arrive together, arm in arm no less?"

Reid blushed but before he could say anything, Genna spoke up. "And what pray-tell are you inferring, Eyebrows?"

"Eyebrows?" Morgan's eyebrows actually did crawl halfway up his forehead.

"Isn't that one of your many nicknames given to you by Penny?" Genna smirked.

"I'm not sure you have privilege yet to use those nicknames." Morgan countered. "That is beside the point. Inquiring minds want to know."

He pointed again at the linked arms.

"And you call yourself a profiler?" Genna sassed him. She dropped Reid's arm and gestured first to herself and then to Reid. "And yet you can't tell the difference between someone who slept on a very comfortable memory foam mattress and someone who slept on a not so comfortable couch and now has a crick in his neck?"

Reid had been using his other hand to rub the back of his neck. He stopped, realizing what he'd been doing.

"So if you're inferring that there was hanky-panky going on then I feel obligated to let the rest of your team know that you might not be much help when real profiling is needed." Genna grinned, triumphant.

"So much sass." Morgan grinned back at her, pleased she could not only take the teasing but give it back.

"My dad, the ex-Navy Seal, spent a good part of my middle and high school years teaching me several different forms of martial arts." Genna paused for a drink of her iced coffee. "You should be glad that your verbal butt is the only one I'm kicking."

"You know there's a gym on the third floor – we could go spar and test your butt kicking skills." Morgan held his arms out in the "come at me bro" pose.

"Who's kicking who's butt?" Agent Hotchner came in behind them.

"Morgan just challenged Genna to a sparing match." Reid answered helpfully.

"Ah. Well, not until after we catch this unsub." Hotchner said amicably. "After which, I've got ten on Morgan."

"Then I've got ten on Genna." Reid chimed in.

"After all we've been through?" Morgan pretended to be wounded.

"I've seen her fight. She's fast and fights dirty." Reid replied matter-of-factly.

Genna grinned and stuck her tongue out at Morgan. "Well, as fun as this is we all have work to do. I'm going to go scan more skulls."

She gave Reid a quick peck on the check before walking away, "Play nice with the other kids."

"I will." He called after her.

"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Eyebrows."

Reid and Hotchner choked back a laugh as Morgan shot them both a dirty look.

As the three men walked into the conference room for the morning briefing Garcia hustled in and quickly set up her laptop.

"Genna just sent me three more faces Dinosaur came up with during the night. I'm running them right now." Garcia sat down, typing furiously. "I've also been looking for common links between the two we already have identified and so far have come up with bupkis. They weren't in town at the same time, they didn't grow up anywhere near each other, no overlapping schooling or financials. Nothing."

She clicked a button on her remote. "Here are the composites the computer came up with for the other two women and one of the men."

The first woman was a brunette with olive colored skin. She appeared to be of Italian decent. The second image was a woman with Spanish looking features. The man appeared to be white, blonde haired and blue eyed.

"So race isn't a factor for this unsub, neither is gender." Blake observed. "There has to be some reason why he's targeting these people."

"You know, I did some reading last night about the symbology of teeth." Reid chimed in. "There's a surprising amount written on the subject. For some people teeth may be a symbol of aggressiveness. For example having a dream where you're biting someone else, may mean there is an aggressive nature towards that person. While false teeth represent insincerity. Losing teeth my symbolize the fear of getting older or being impotent and losing sexual attractiveness."

"So he's pulling the teeth to make his victims less aggressive towards him?" J.J. guessed. "Or because he's trying to make them less attractive or boost his own potency?"  
"Maybe he's the one who is impotent and lacking sexual attractiveness and needs the teeth somehow to help with his problems." Rossi continued on that idea.

"Ah!" Garcia shouted, interrupting. "Got two of them. Our mystery man is Clark Davidson from Texas. Graduated from Texas Tech. He was here to interview for an internship but never made it to the interview. The company he was applying to figured he'd chickened out and gone home so never reported him as a no show. It wasn't until his family didn't hear back from him after a week that they called authorities. He's been missing for five years now."

"So Clark is the first victim." Hotch observed.

"We think so." Garcia answered. "Genna said his looks like the oldest of the skulls."

"The brunette woman is Gianna Rinaldo, foreign exchange student originally from Italy." Garcia went on. "According to the report she went missing from a friend's birthday party. Gianna and her friends were...Oh...At the same club as Claudia. A place called Siren."

"Then that's where we start looking." Hotch stated. "Morgan, you and Reid head out there and interview the staff. It's been a while but someone might still remember or know something."

"Sent the address to your tablets." Garcia told them.

"Right." The two stood and left.

"Blake, Rossi, let's see if we can start building a time line based on the victims we have been able to identify." Hotch continued. "J.J. we'll split the families to call them and notify them we've found their loved ones. Someone may know something without realizing they do."

"I'll take Claudia's aunt and cousins." J.J. nodded. "They're local. I'd rather break it to them in person. That cousin she was with might not realize something she saw as significant."

With the confirmation of duties the group split up. Hotch and J.J. left while Blake and Rossi started rearranging the printed photos of the victims on the white board.

"Garcia, can we have printouts of those two new ones too?" Rossi asked.

"Done and done." Garcia said. "You can also have the last woman's photo too. She just popped up. The missing person's report was from Maine. Caroline Stanton, also a college student – surprise, surprise – who was here on vacation. She and her friends were driving to Fort Lauderdale and were only supposed to be in town for a day. They booked a set of rooms at a motel and then went out clubbing. Three guesses where they went, and the first two don't count."

"The same club as Claudia and Gianna." Rossi didn't sound surprised.

"Right." Garcia confirmed. "I'm sending this over to Morgan and Reid."

"So that's three confirmed people who went missing from Siren." Blake said. "So he's either a local who frequents the place or maybe a staff member."

"It's a good bet."

"So why is he choosing them?" Rossi asked. "What made these people special to him?"

"They all have nice smiles." Genna observed.

They turned. She was leaning in the doorway.

"Say that again?" Rossi requested.

"Look at the photos from their files." Genna heaved up off the door frame and walked closer pointing. "The computer defaults to a neutral expression when it reconstructs people. But in all these photos they look happy, confident. Those smiles, they all have that special sparkle."

"That's how he chooses." Blake sounded astonished. "He's looking for people he thinks have good smiles."

"Race doesn't matter to him, nor does gender." Rossi continued. "Overall appearance isn't as important as the smiles – their teeth. All these people have perfectly white, straight teeth. They're all in proportion and aligned perfectly."

"So why does he want people with perfect teeth?" Garcia asked.

"Don't know yet." Rossi remarked. "Perhaps he lacks a perfect smile himself? Maybe it was something he feels deficient in?"

"With all the ways there are to fix your teeth these days?" Genna was puzzled. "Why would this even be an issue to him?"

"Don't know that either." Rossi responded. "But it's out job to figure it out."

"Did you finish another face?" Blake asked Genna.

"Oh, no, not yet." She told them. "The skulls are all scanned, the computer should have something for you in another three hours or so. But, the M.E.'s office just sent over the rest of the skeletons and they need someone higher up on the pay grade then me to sign for them."

"I'll do it." Rossi volunteered. "If I could sign for the skulls, I'm good enough for the bodies. Where are they?"

"Out in the lobby." Genna told him. "If you could have them deliver the boxes to my temporary office that would be great."

He acknowledged her request with a nod and left.

"So your system can actually put the bodies back with the right skulls?" Blake asked.

"I ran trial runs with mice and rat skeletons of various sizes and bone ages when I was first developing the program." Genna explained. "Roughly 95% of the time the computer gets it right. When reassembling the skeletons by hand after following the computer's suggestions I find the results to be extremely accurate even with human skeletons. I have to number each one as I scan it. The computer takes the id number and starts putting it with the other parts that match. It will spit out a list of all the part numbers that go together."

"How can you handle body parts?" Garcia asked. "Just thinking about it gives me the hebbie jebbies."

"I had a professor for life studies class that used to take us down to the city morgue to draw the bodies." Genna replied. "Once you start drawing fleshy corpses with anatomical accuracy, then handling bare bones is nothing."

"Ew." Garcia shook herself.

"This is actually quite nice." Genna went on with a wicked grin. "I had a case out in Hawaii where some fisherman had pulled up three corpses tucked into a garbage bag. You wouldn't believe what they looked like after having been in the water. They were so bloated my machine couldn't get an accurate read on where the skull was under all the flesh."

"Oh, double ew." Garcia grabbed her laptop. "This is where I get off."

"But I haven't even told you how I had to remove the skin and muscle to be able to scan the skulls yet."

The analyst squeaked made a strategic retreat from the room.

Rossi came back into the room. "Where'd Garcia go?"

"Genna of the very strong stomach drove her off." Blake answered wryly.

"I always miss the good stuff."

J.J. pulled up to the address in the file. It was a single story ranch with a chain link fence and a well kept yard. She parked the SUV and got out, carrying her files, and her notepad.

She rang the bell and looked around the neighborhood. It seemed lower middle class but still well kept up. Neighbors watched her from their porches and kids and dogs were playing in a few of the yards.

The door opened and she turned. A woman in her late twenties opened. J.J. could see the family resemblance between her and Claudia Jones.

"Mrs. Jones?" J.J. asked.

"That's my mother." The woman replied. "I'm just a miss. Who are you?"

"I'm Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau. I'm with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI." She flashed her credentials. "I'm here about Claudia."

"Oh my god. Oh my god." The younger woman's eyes grew wide. "Have you found her? Is she..."

J.J.'s eyes were full of sympathy. "May I speak with you inside?"

Tears fell from the other woman's eyes, understanding the look J.J. was giving her. "Yes, of course. Come inside Agent Jareau. Let me get my mother."

"Mom!" She shouted as she held the door open. J.J. walked past her into the home. She observed the pictures on the walls, drifting casually around the room as the other woman went and got her mother from one of the back rooms. The place was clean, and well kept, even if everything in it was showing age.

The mother came back into the room with her daughter. "I'm Clarissa Jones. My daughter Peggy says you have information about my niece Claudia."

"Yes," J.J. kept her tone low and soothing. "You may want to sit."

The other two took spots on the couch and a chair. J.J. sat next to the aunt. "A few days ago a grave site was unearthed near the river in Washington National Park. We've identified one of the skeletal remains as your niece."

Clarissa broke down crying and her daughter moved over to put her arms around her mother. "Wait, you said one of...there were others?"

"I'm afraid so. She was one of nine victims total." J.J. told them. "I know this is extremely hard but I need to go over everything from the night she disappeared. Anything you remember could be of vital importance in catching her killer."

"I...I..don't even know if I still remember everything from that night." Peggy stammered. "It was three years ago. Isn't it all in my report to the police anyway?"

"The police didn't know they were looking for a serial killer." J.J. always hated this part of the job. It was always hard on the families. "Something they might overlook may be crucial to us."

"I want you to close your eyes." J.J. leveled her voice off. Cognitive interviews were a form of forensic hypnosis often used by the team. "I want you to picture Claudia and yourself. You were at the Siren."

"Yes, we'd just walked in. The place was packed." Peggy complied and closed her eyes, trying to remember.

"What did you do first when you got there?" J.J. asked.

"We went to the bar." Peggy replied. "Like I said, the place was packed. The people were three deep at the bar waiting for drinks. But then..."

"Then what?" J.J. prompted.

"We were waiting at the back of the line but then one of the bartenders let us cut in front." Peggy answered. "He said he noticed how pretty Claudia's smile was and had to let us through."

"What did he look like?"

"Um, tall, blondish brown hair, it was spikey." She furrowed her brows as she thought. "White, tanned, he had beard scruff. Blue eyes I think. Wore the same black t-shirt all the staff at the Siren wear."

"What did you get to drink?"

"I had the house specialty – the chocolate dream martini. Claudia got the watermelon martini."

"Did anyone talk to you two? Or get mad that the bartender let you cut the line?"

"Some people grumbled but no one said anything outright." Peggy said. "We took our drinks to the dance floor. We danced with another group of girls, some creep tried to grind up on me but I spilled my drink on him and he left."

"What did he look like?"

"Um, I really don't know. I didn't really look at him, he had some frat shirt on."

"That's okay." J.J. said. "Move on. What happened after you spilled your drink?"

"I went back to the bar for another one. Claudia stayed on the dance floor. The bartender who let us cut in line wasn't there anymore. I had to wait like 8 minutes." Peggy said, sounding annoyed. "I got my drink and went back to where I left Claudia. She wasn't there. I checked the tables, thinking that she might have gotten tired and sat down. I couldn't find her there either. I checked the bathroom, called her cell phone, I couldn't find her."

Peggy's voice became distressed.

"It's okay." J.J. soothed her. "You can open your eyes."

The younger woman did so. "Was any of that helpful?"

"I don't know yet." J.J. answered truthfully. "But it's more then we knew before."

The agent's phone buzzed. She looked down at it. It was Rossi.

"Excuse me." She got up and went to the far side of the room by the door.

"What's up?"

"Got a new theory." Rozzi explained. "We think he's taking people he feels have a perfect smile. The perfection of the teeth is somehow important to him."

"Wait." J.J. turned and looked back at Peggy. "Claudia's cousin said the bartender at Siren let them cut a line because he thought Claudia had a nice smile."

"That could be him then." Rozzi said hopefully. "I'll call Reid and let him know."

"Okay. See you back at headquarters." J.J. hung up.

"Peggy, you may have helped more then you think." J.J. told her. "We might have a solid lead now."

The agent handed them a card. "If you do think of anything else let me know. Otherwise, we will be in touch with your family at the conclusion of the case so you can claim Claudia's remains."

"Thank you Agent Jareau." Claudia's aunt said gratefully.

Morgan and Reid were already at Siren, interviewing the bartender who was setting up before the evening opening. So far it had proven futile as he was new, and had only been there a few months. Anyone who would have been there when the victims disappeared had long since quit. They were just waiting around for the owner. The bartender had called him, and he was on his way in to speak to the agents.

"So this was a waste of time." Morgan leaned on the bar speaking in an undertone to Reid.

"Not really." Reid said. "We know the unsub hunted from here. Now that we've seen the area, it's not unreasonable to think that perhaps he also took victims from the competing clubs nearby. This may be his comfort zone."

Reid's phone buzzed. "It's Rozzi."

"Hello." He picked up the call. "Really? That is interesting. I'll bring it up in the interview with the Siren's owner. Thanks Rozzi."

"What's interesting?" Morgan asked as Reid hung up his phone.

"J.J. interviewed the cousin of that first victim we identified. She said that the bartender here let the two of them cut the line at the bar because 'Claudia had a nice smile.'"

"And?"

"Blake and Rozzi said that the only thing that connects the victims besides this club is their smiles. Each one has a perfect set of teeth."

"And we already know that teeth are clearly important to this guy."

"Right." Reid said. "We need to ask about the man who was tending bar here three years ago."

"It's a better direction than we had before."

J.J. got back to headquarters just after lunch. Her stomach growled at her reminding her she hadn't stopped to eat. As she rounded the corner into the conference room she saw Chinese takeout spread out. Blake and Rossi were eating out of two of the containers and staring at their time line on the board.

"Please tell me that there's extra." J.J. sounded exhausted.

Blake reached back and pushed one of the containers over to her. "We bought for everyone. That's your usual."

"God bless you." She sat and opened the takeout box, digging in. "Oh, there's more photos."

"Yeah, Dinosaur came up with three more. It's still working on the last one." Rozzi pointed. "It appears that Clark is our oldest victim, this is Brian Calvin, who went missing six months later. Daniel Parker was another six months after that. Then we get our first female victim, Caroline. The next two are Reggie Manfredi and Ward Marconi. Also killed about six months apart."

"So, two kills a year." J.J. summed up. "And if there's still one more the computer is working on that means he's due to hunt again."

"Not if we can help it." Blake said firmly.

Hotch walked into the room, his tie was loosened and he seemed worse for the wear.

"Please tell me there's extra."

Rozzi pushed a designated container over to him.

"Went rough with the families?" He asked his team leader.

"Two mothers broke down into complete hysterics and I couldn't get anything out of them for almost twenty minutes." Hotch said. "The others said they were going to fly in to claim the bodies and talk to us in person. I don't think any of them have anything of substance to add though."

"I had a bit of luck with Peggy Jones, Claudia's cousin." J.J. said. She recapped the conversation for Hotch.

He stared at the time line on the board. "Then he either has a new victim lined up or he's already got one. Either way time is running out. We can't sit on the press forever. This story is going to leak and he'll realize that his burial ground has been disturbed."

Morgan and Reid came in and saw the food. They both opened their mouths but before either said anything Rozzi pushed separate boxes in their directions.

They sat gratefully and started eating.

Reid looked up. "So we almost have every victim identified?"

He ran some numbers through his head. "That's faster then Genna originally estimated."

"Hey, where is she?"

"Still down the hall." Blake pointed with a nod of her head. "The rest of the bodies came in and she's been trying to match the remains to the skulls."

"I'll be right back." Reid put his food down and left.

"So we know the names of some likely bartenders who may be the one described by Peggy Jones." Morgan filled them in. "We spoke to the owner of the Siren and he said he had three male bartenders during that time frame who match the general description of white, with blondish brown hair and beard scruff. He looked up their names on his payroll accounts. I forwarded them all to Garcia. She's going through their records now."

"But I'm fine..." They could hear Genna protesting down the hall.

"You need to eat." Reid spoke firmly to her. "And take a break."

"But, I've only got two of the four boxes done!"

"They're dead." Was Reid's calm answer. "They'll wait for you to get back."

"But..."

"No buts."

"Fine." Genna sounded like a petulant child.

The rest of the team covered laughter as the two walked into the room. Reid had Genna marching in front of him. He pulled a chair out for her and she sat.

"We weren't sure what you'd want." Rossi said, "So we just got an extra order of the chicken fingers and fried rice.

"I will happily take the rice." Genna said as Rossi pushed the box over her. "And help myself to what he's having."

She pointed her thumb at Reid.

She shoveled food into her mouth, chewed and swallowed before turning to Hotch. "Last face came up. Asian male. The skull seemed to have the least amount of aging on it. Sent it to Garcia."

"Great." Hotch said.

"Guys!" Garcia ran into the room, a photo in one hand and her tablet under the other. "Meet Evan Lang, our last victim. Again, college student from out of town. He went missing about 6 months ago."

"Which fits the time line." Rossi swiveled his chair away from the white board back to the table. "Which means this unsub is probably out there right now looking for a new perfect smile."

"That's not all folks." Garcia turned on the large screens and then pulled something up on her tablet. "I searched the names Morgan and Reid came up with at the club. Tommy Fontana checked out with no suspicious activity. Aaron Montenegro is currently serving a five year sentence for drug possession. But, this is where we hit the jackpot."

A photo came up on the screen fitting the description given by Peggy. "Meet Denis Townsend. He is currently 28, works part time as a bartender at a place called Red Rabbit."

"That's only five miles away from Siren." Reid sat up.

"And get this folks, he's a dental student. It takes eight years to become a Doctor of Dental surgery or D.D.S. for short. He is currently in his sixth year. " Garcia continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"Now that does sound promising." Rossi also straightened in his seat.

"His facial symmetry is off." Genna spoke quietly. She stared at his picture, frowning at it.

"What was that?" Reid turned to her.

"His facial symmetry..." Genna spoke a little louder, uncertain if she should be chiming in. "It's off. Turn your finger sideways and place it right under your nose. Your top lip should start exactly one finger width away from your nose."

Curious, a few of the team did so.

She went on. "Garcia, can you scale that so it matches the height on his driver's license?"

"Sure. Just a sec." She made some swipes on her tablet and the picture resized.

"If one of the guys who match his height could measure?"

Hotchner's 6'1" frame matched the height listed on the driver's license. He stood and measured. "I'll be damned. It's more like one and a half fingers."

"Oh!" Garcia spoke excitedly. "There's a reason for that. He was born with a cleft palette. He underwent several surgeries at different points of his childhood to fix it. According to old school records though he was always being picked on because of his appearance. He was in and out of the office all the time for attacking his bullies."

"How did you even notice that?" Morgan turned to Genna, a little impressed.

"I'm sorry," She grinned back at him with her wicked smile. "Did you miss the part where I LOOK AT FACES all day?"

"So much sass..." Morgan shook his head at her.

"Wait a minute, hold the phone." Garcia was still scrolling through the information on her screen. "He was in a car accident about a year before he got into dental school – they had to do re-constructive surgery on his face, some of it on that upper palette."

"And that's his stressor." Reid said excitedly. "He would have been almost a year recovering fully, but by then he would have been in dental school acquiring the skills he needed to extract the teeth. Working at the bars wasn't just a way to support himself through school but to also hunt for his victims. By taking only the out of towners he could avoid detection longer. I bet he's also gone from club to club, working at each one just long enough to find his next set of kills."

"Ah, yup." Garcia confirmed. "Employment records state that he has held a different bar-tending job every year to year and a half."

"When one place got too hot he'd quit and move on." Rossi said.

"Garcia, send backup to his school, his work and home. Send his home address to Morgan and Reid. J.J. and I will take the Red Rabbit. Blake and Rossi his school." Hotch fixed his tie. "Each team will met local enforcement at one of the locations. Let's not waste any time."

The room emptied fast. Only Garcia and Genna were left behind. Garcia was busily calling the necessary reinforcements and dispatching them to the necessary locations. When she got off the phone she collapsed into a chair.

"Wooof..."

"Is it always like that?" Genna asked, wide eyed.

"Isn't it like that with your team?" Garcia countered.

"I kind of just live in my little cubicle." Genna sounded uneasy. "My boss would have chased me out of the meeting room unless I had a Vic id."

"Ugh." The other woman commiserated. "Makes me glad I work with Agent Hotchner."

"Makes me jealous that you do."

The actual capture almost seemed anti-climatic after the events that led up to it. Reid and Morgan had come up empty at the suspect's home but had found the teeth. Rows and rows of them in shadow boxes on his walls. Some still had blood on them. One whole room of his home covered in magazine cutouts – they were just of mouths. Hundreds and hundreds of smiling mouths. They also found partially empty tanks of nitrous oxide. Reid hypothesized that he was stealing the near empty and to be discarded tanks from his school and then transferring the leftovers into one tank to completely fill it. Morgan was just grateful that at least this meant that his victims were unconscious during the extractions. They found a table with straps in the basement where the work was carried out. Also in the basement was a 50 gallon fish tank. It was filled with a colony of Dermestid beetles.

Blake and Rossi turned up nothing at the school but did seize all his records and interviewed people who interacted with him. They all reported that he was friendly enough on the surface but never invited anyone over to hang out, or came to out of school social events. They all talked about how he would beg out of functions by saying he was going hiking or camping.

It was J.J. and Hotchner who struck gold at the Red Rabbit. He was behind the bar setting up his glassware for the evening shift. When they burst in he froze for a moment before trying to bolt. The officers who had circled around the back caught him in the act of fleeing.

At first, he tried to deny it and tell them they had the wrong person. Once confronted with the pictures of the teeth hung on his walls, he just smiled and said, "Is there anything wrong with wanting a few spares? After all, accidents happen. I could loose one."

Hotchner got a full confession out of him. His victims were under anesthesia during the extractions but often woke up in the middle. If that happened he never bothered to put them back under. He would just clamp their jaws open and turn his music up to cover any sound they might manage to make. He let them bleed out from the open sockets. Most died from the blood loss and infection. The bodies were then folded as tightly as possible and tossed into the tank with the beetles. His long wait time between kills coincided with the time it took for the beetles to reach each adult life cycle and to strip the body completely to the bone.

While all the wrap up and final paperwork had been going on Genna had been resolutely plugging away at reuniting all the bones with their proper owners. She worked from first thing in the morning until Reid dragged her away at night. Everything was finally scanned and she was just waiting for Dinosaur to tell her which bones belonged to which skulls.

She had nine evidence boxes lined up. Each one with a victim's name and photo on them. The skulls were already packed gently away in their respective boxes.

That's where Hotchner found her. Sitting at her computer with her feet up on the chair next to her and a coffee mug in both hands.

"Could I see you privately, Genevieve?" He asked.

"Oh, of course." Genna swung her feet down and left her coffee on the table. She followed Hotchner back to his office and took the seat he gestured at as he closed the door behind them.

"It's come to my attention that you currently have no permanent residence." Hotchner began bluntly.

"What?" Of all the things Genna expected him to talk about, that was decidedly not one of them.

He confronted her with the information that Garcia had given him. Genna's initial reaction was anger.

"How dare she? She had no right to go digging in my personal life!"

"She did it because she cares about the people she works with." Hotchner explained patiently. "She was worried about you."

Genna's anger deflated. She just looked tired.

"Tell me." Hotchner said. "I want to hear everything about how this happened."

"It started when I was transferred to Tyler Reynold's team." She started and then stopped.

"Go on."

"At first, it wasn't bad. But I started to notice some things that felt off." She went on. "He had a snide, sarcastic comment for just about everyone. You could almost shrug it off as friendly teasing except – it really wasn't. If someone here teases, everyone banters back. If Reynold's teased, everyone stayed silent and well, kind of ducked for cover."

She played with her finger nails for a moment. "At first, I was beneath his notice. I'm kind of used to that. Most field agents never really have anything to do with Forensics in general much less a Forensic Artist. But when I started to clear the backlog of unknown bodies in our case files he started to notice me. Any time I got praised by the higher-ups, his abuse of the team got worse. I couldn't let them be punished for my work. There was no reason to be punishing anyone – but that's clearly what was going on."

"So you jumped in, started fighting back." Hotchner nodded as if he agreed with her.

"I was the only one who would stand up to him." Genna's voice sounded truly exhausted now. "It got to the point where I would call attention to myself any time he started in on someone else. He tried writing me up for insubordination a few times but the big bosses ignored it. My tech made me too popular. I own the patents on my equipment and programs. They wanted to make use of them, but not pay the royalties to reproduce my products. He couldn't get rid of me if he tried. So, he started loaning me out to other field offices. It wasn't bad at first. Every case was a legitimate one after all. It didn't get real bad until he started withholding leave time from the others unless I took a case."

"It got you out of his hair." Hotch sat back in his seat. "Gave him back the control he wanted over his office."

"I suppose." Genna said, mirroring Hotch's body language she leaned back. "Soon I was traveling so much there didn't seem a point to keeping a place when I wasn't there often enough to use it. Seemed like a waste of money. So when the lease came up, I just moved everything into self-storage."

"Why stay? Why not say something or report him?" Hotchner asks.

Genna falls silent and stares at her hands.

He answers for her. "You're highly empathic. You find it all too easy to imagine the suffering of others. You are also very brave and selfless which makes you want to shield others from harm - like you did with Spencer back in high school. I made some discreet calls to some of your co-workers. Overall they prefer having you in the office because you're the only one who will stand up to the arrogant bastard who runs your department. Also, because as long as you're there he's harassing you and leaving everyone else alone."

Genna's quiet for a moment before she speaks. "That about sums it up. And may I say, that being profiled kinda sucks."

"So does having your life stripped away from you." He replies. "I made some calls, talked to my higher ups. The only thing you are returning to California for is to empty that self-storage locker."

Genna looked up at him confused. "Sir?"

"I'm not letting you go back to that work environment. I've taken steps too, to see Reynolds' reviewed and removed from a position of leadership." Hotchner told her. "I'm having you transferred here to Quantico. I've got the paperwork all filled out. I just need your signature on it."

He opened a folder and slid the paperwork across the desk to her. He put a pen on top.

"Your case load will be strictly managed and you will be training new Forensic Artists to use your tech. Just because there's currently only one set doesn't mean that you have to be the only one using it. You will be officially attached to the B.A.U. as our Forensic Artist of choice. You have helped clear an astonishing number of cases. I merely pointed out to the powers that be that you are too valuable an asset to let burn out."

She had tears forming on the edges of her eyes as she took the folder and reviewed the paperwork inside. The hand that held the folder shook slightly.

"And you will take a god damned vacation – and use every last day you have accrued. Starting immediately." He added.

Genna broke down and started to cry. Hotch let her for a few moments recognizing the cathartic effect of her tears. When she seemed to be stopping he passed over a box of tissues. She dried her face and blew her nose, tossing the tissue into his garbage can at the side of his desk. Genna signed the paperwork and passed it back to him.

"That will be all then." He tells her, smiling.

She stands, walks to the door and puts her hand on the knob. Before she left, she turned and smiled at him. "Thanks."

"Any time." He answered, pretending to be absorbed in paperwork.

While Genna was in Hotch's office, Reid had come by looking for her. Finding no one at her computer he went in search of Garcia next door.

"Hey, have you seen Genna?"

"Oh, Hotch came by and wanted to talk to her privately. They're in his office."

"That's weird." Reid said, puzzled. "What could he possibly want with her?"

Garcia bit her lip and winced.

Reid caught that. "Garcia...what did Hotch want with Genna?"

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

"Garcia! I'm her oldest friend!" Reid was genuinely upset. "If something's wrong I need to know!"

"Oooohhhh." Garcia wavered. "I'm not supposed to tell until she agrees."

"Agrees to what?!" Reid had raised his voice enough now to attract the rest of the team. They lurked in the doorway, curious.

"Genna's homeless." Garcia blurted out and then clapped both hands across her mouth.

"WHAT?!"

"Her boss is a mean nasty man who picks on everyone in her office – especially Genna and he keeps her traveling so much she had to give up her home." Garcia spoke incredibly fast. "Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at her." Reid said forcefully. "Why didn't she tell me? We're supposed to be friends. Why wouldn't she confide in me?"

"Shame. Pride." Morgan said quietly from the doorway. "She always took care of you. You're not supposed to be the one taking care of her."

"It's okay though Reid." Garcia tried to reassure him. "Hotch took care of it. He made a bunch of calls. He talked to a lot of people. He's got enough testimony to get her bastard boss removed from his office."

"I still can't believe she wouldn't tell me." Reid sounded heartbroken.

"Did I miss a party invitation?" Genevieve's voice sounded from behind the group piled in the doorway.

J.J. and Blake had the good grace to look embarrassed and fled. Morgan and Rossi both clapped her on the shoulder before following the women.

"What was all that about?" Genna asked completely confused.

"Gotta go!" Garcia was the last one to flee the room.

"Will you at least tell me what's going on?" Genna asked Spencer.

He was quiet for a really long time.

"Garcia told me about your situation."

"Oh."

"Why didn't you tell me what was going on?" Reid met her eyes. "I could have helped."

She shrugged, helplessly. "Because I'm the one who is supposed to take care of you. Not the other way around. We just reconnected. I didn't want to burden you."

"Except that I am all grown up and perfectly capable of taking care of myself now." He replies. "It would be nice to finally have the chance to return the favor."

"Well, you'll get your chance." She answers. "Hotch is having me transferred here. I'm staying."

"You're staying?" He repeated, a slow grin spreading over his face.

"I'm staying." She said, a bit overly loud.

A big cheer came from the next room and Garcia raced back in and hugged Genna.

"I knew you would be eavesdropping." Genna hugged the other woman back. "I was really angry with you for going behind my back and investigating me...but, I'm glad you did."

"So, all's forgiven?" Garcia asked pulling back.

"Only if you host the next Dr. Who marathon the BBC airs and provide the snacks."

"Deal!"

"The rest of you can come out now." Genna said to the air.

Sheepishly, the others filed in. They all congratulated her on the transfer and expressed their pleasure at the news. This time when they filed out with Morgan dragging Garcia out; Genna checked the hallway and the room next door to make sure they were gone.

"Genna?" Spencer says.

She turned to him. "Spence?"

"I'm really glad you're staying."

"Me too." She replied.

He opened his arms and hugged her. She was surprised, as he normally never initiated contact first, but leaned into the hug. They stood frozen for a moment before he pulled back.

"But I don't want to you just think of me as that child you had to protect." He continued. "If we're staying friends, it needs to be on equal footing."

"We take care of each other, we tell each other the truth, and we don't keep secrets." She offered terms.

"Sounds perfect." He agreed.

"Well, your first official act as my equal-in-standing friend can be to help me find my own place." Genna joked, "I can't keep you from your own bed forever."

"Deal." Spencer answered, and leaned in giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. His impulse surprised them both and they both blushed.

He offered his arm, and she looped her own through it. As they left, she flicked the light off.

At the elevators, the two found the rest of the team including Hotchner waiting for them.

Rossi stepped forward. "I am formally inviting you, Genevieve Hardy, to join the team for post case solving drinks at our usual bar. We will drink to old friends, new ones, and having all our teeth."

Genna groaned a bit at his bad joke at the end but smiled. "I would love to."

"Well then, let's go."

Morgan pressed the elevator call button. As they all piled in, he turned to Genna.

"You know, you still owe me a sparing match."

"That reminds me," Hotch said. "I'm changing my bet to ten on Genna."

"Betrayal at every turn!" Morgan joked.

"I have a feeling that Genna could outlast you in a fight." Hotch winked at her. "She's got some serious stamina."

"And she's fast and fights dirty." Reid chimed in helpfully.

"Wait, what's going on?" Blake asked.

"Sparing match, Morgan vs. Hardy. To be executed at a future date." Hotch said. "Place your bets now."

The team broke out into a flurry of laughter, betting and banter. Reid watched Genna from the corner of his eye. She smiled, not just one of her lopsided, teasing, wicked grins, or one of her 'trying to be polite' smiles. This one was accompanied by an overall relaxing of her features, stress draining from her face, a true ear to ear joyful smile. And that, made him smile too.


End file.
